4 ms·

Why does Yahoo have so many employees to begin with?

ardit33 18y ago
typical middle managerial game in large companies where politics rule. A lot of Managers want to add as much headcount as they can under them so they look more important, even though the aditional headcount is not really needed.
lacker 18y ago
Middle management doesn't have so much to do with it. It's simply because their business is huge. It takes a lot of behind the scenes infrastructure work to run one of the biggest websites in the world. Include ad sales, marketing, HR, et cetera and 14,000 employees is reasonable. In terms of revenue per employee Yahoo seems reasonably staffed for its business size, at least for the tech sector. For comparison, revenues per employee: Yahoo: $504,559 http://www.smartmoney.com/stock-quote/?story=profile&symbol=YHOO http://www.smartmoney.com/stock-quote/?story=profile&sym... Microsoft: $663,956 http://www.smartmoney.com/stock-quote/?story=profile&symbol=MSFT http://www.smartmoney.com/stock-quote/?story=profile&sym... IBM: $272,896 http://www.smartmoney.com/stock-quote/?story=profile&symbol=IBM http://www.smartmoney.com/stock-quote/?story=profile&sym... Amazon and Google are a lot higher, around $1 mil revenue per employee, so it really varies, but it's not totally crazy for a business of Yahoo's size to have 14,000 employees. What it boils down to is, problems that are so small they affect 1% of your users, for a small site that isn't worth worrying about. But for Yahoo it's worth it to have a whole team work on the problem.
- fallentimes 18y ago
  Also of note (and from the same source): Income Per Employee Yahoo: $72,055 Microsoft: $194,297 IBM: $30,681 Amazon: $34,588 Google: $303,903 It's usually good to look at revenue & net income together. Currently, I'd invest in these companies roughly in order of net income per employee.
- jdavid 18y ago
  Nintendo is pretty sick, with like $500k in profit per employee and $2.5 million in revenue per employee. http://www.joystiq.com/2007/05/31/fortune-nintendo-is-beating-microsoft-and-sony/ http://www.joystiq.com/2007/05/31/fortune-nintendo-is-beatin... We should all aspire to build companies like Nintendo, that are not the largest company in their space, but are still able to have the largest wins. Think of the chances that company has taken over the years to reinvent themselves yet they win big when they do.
  - lacker 18y ago
    Definitely. Nintendo is also a great example of launching, getting customers, and iterating over time to meet the market. One cool thing a lot of people don't know is that Nintendo actually predates the NES. They had a version of Duck Hunt that plugged into a TV in '77. Check it out - http://www.japan-games.com/Database/images/Nintendo/TV-Game/Duckhunt/index.htm http://www.japan-games.com/Database/images/Nintendo/TV-Game/...

typical middle managerial game in large companies where politics rule. A lot of Managers want to add as much headcount as they can under them so they look more important, even though the aditional headcount is not really needed.

lacker 18y ago

Middle management doesn't have so much to do with it. It's simply because their business is huge. It takes a lot of behind the scenes infrastructure work to run one of the biggest websites in the world. Include ad sales, marketing, HR, et cetera and 14,000 employees is reasonable. In terms of revenue per employee Yahoo seems reasonably staffed for its business size, at least for the tech sector. For comparison, revenues per employee: Yahoo: $504,559 http://www.smartmoney.com/stock-quote/?story=profile&symbol=YHOO http://www.smartmoney.com/stock-quote/?story=profile&sym... Microsoft: $663,956 http://www.smartmoney.com/stock-quote/?story=profile&symbol=MSFT http://www.smartmoney.com/stock-quote/?story=profile&sym... IBM: $272,896 http://www.smartmoney.com/stock-quote/?story=profile&symbol=IBM http://www.smartmoney.com/stock-quote/?story=profile&sym... Amazon and Google are a lot higher, around $1 mil revenue per employee, so it really varies, but it's not totally crazy for a business of Yahoo's size to have 14,000 employees. What it boils down to is, problems that are so small they affect 1% of your users, for a small site that isn't worth worrying about. But for Yahoo it's worth it to have a whole team work on the problem.

fallentimes 18y ago
Also of note (and from the same source): Income Per Employee Yahoo: $72,055 Microsoft: $194,297 IBM: $30,681 Amazon: $34,588 Google: $303,903 It's usually good to look at revenue & net income together. Currently, I'd invest in these companies roughly in order of net income per employee.
jdavid 18y ago
Nintendo is pretty sick, with like $500k in profit per employee and $2.5 million in revenue per employee. http://www.joystiq.com/2007/05/31/fortune-nintendo-is-beating-microsoft-and-sony/ http://www.joystiq.com/2007/05/31/fortune-nintendo-is-beatin... We should all aspire to build companies like Nintendo, that are not the largest company in their space, but are still able to have the largest wins. Think of the chances that company has taken over the years to reinvent themselves yet they win big when they do.
- lacker 18y ago
  Definitely. Nintendo is also a great example of launching, getting customers, and iterating over time to meet the market. One cool thing a lot of people don't know is that Nintendo actually predates the NES. They had a version of Duck Hunt that plugged into a TV in '77. Check it out - http://www.japan-games.com/Database/images/Nintendo/TV-Game/Duckhunt/index.htm http://www.japan-games.com/Database/images/Nintendo/TV-Game/...